


you don't need to suffer anymore

by ShyAudacity



Series: Riverdale Prompt Fills [8]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Asexual Jughead Jones, Choking, Crying, Death Threats, FP is a bad dude, Fred is the Best Parent, Homophobic Language, Hospitals, Hurt Jughead Jones, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Injury, Jughead Jones Needs a Hug, Jughead Jones-centric, M/M, Night Terrors, Panic Attacks, Paranoia, Prompt Fill, Protective Archie, Protective Fred Andrews, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 13:43:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11105757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShyAudacity/pseuds/ShyAudacity
Summary: The aftermath of the fight with his drunken father is what leaves him standing outside of his boyfriend’s house, soaking wet due to walking through the rain. He wants more than anything for all of this to be a bad dream, to wake up and not feel so utterly destroyed.Archie opens the door and for a moment Jughead regrets his decision of coming here.“Hey, I was ju-.” Archie’s face falls noticing the blood running down the side of Jughead’s face. “Oh my god. What the hell?”Jughead lets out a shuddering breath as Archie pulls him in, trying not to wince at the movement. Jughead looks as distraught and ashamed as he feels; it’s like a black hole sitting at the top of his ribcage, eating him alive.ORAnon asked: Could you write a oneshot about Jughead getting abused by his father and then Archie finds out and he kinda fixes Jugheads wounds. Also I really like how Fred is as a parent so maybe add some Fred being cool:) thank you so much I love your writing!!!





	you don't need to suffer anymore

**Author's Note:**

> Me: *wants to write something other than Jarchie*
> 
> Also me: *can't*
> 
> Unbeta'd and title from "Today Means Amen" by Sierra Demulder.

He should have kept his mouth shut, should have ignored his Dad’s remark about him being home on a Friday night, but he couldn’t help himself. The witty insult had left his mouth before he had taken the time to think about it, to remind himself where he was and who he was dealing with. He’s not surprised that he had then been made to pay for it. 

“ _You think that you’re some kind of a tough guy, huh? What’s a kid like you got to feel tough about?”_

Jughead trudges up the front steps to Andrews house, trembling when the cold wind picks up. He was really hoping that things wouldn’t ever come to this, that his dad would never hurt him to the point that he felt the need to get someone else involved. It wasn’t even that he’d been hurt that badly, not physically at least. While, yes, there is a dull ache spreading across his body, it doesn’t compare to the panic traveling through his bloodline like electricity, pulsing his in fingers. He can hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears.

“ _You think that you’re so smart, don’t ya? I bet y’all thought you were being secretive, thinking that I wouldn’t find out. I got eyes all over town, kid. I know more than ya think.”_

Being alone was the last thing Jughead wanted in this moment. The aftermath of the fight with his drunken father is what leaves him standing outside of his boyfriend’s house, soaking wet due to walking through the rain. He wants more than anything for all of this to be a bad dream, to wake up and not feel so utterly destroyed.

Archie opens the door and for a moment Jughead regrets his decision of coming here.

“Hey, I was ju-.” Archie’s face falls noticing the blood running down the side of Jughead’s face. “Oh my god. What the hell?”

Jughead lets out a shuddering breath as Archie pulls him in, trying not to wince at the movement. Jughead looks as distraught and ashamed as he feels; it’s like a black hole sitting at the top of his ribcage, eating him alive.

As Archie pulls him into the bathroom and sits him on the toilet seat, Jughead doesn’t meet his eye. Archie moves swiftly, pulling out the first aid kit from under the sink and getting to work. Jughead has a cut over his left eyebrow, slowly making a bloody path down his cheek despite Archie’s best efforts to clean it up.    

“This might need stitches, what happened?” Archie asks.

_“No kid of mine is gonna be a faggot… not if I have anything to say about it.”_

Jughead can’t help but flinch thinking of the words his father had spit at him. He recoils when Archie places a gentle hand on top of his wrist, doesn’t meet his pleading eyes.

“Jug… baby, I need you to tell me who did this to you.” Archie leans closer, his nose wrinkling when he realizes that Jughead reeks like beer. For a moment, he wants to ask Jughead why he’d been drinking, then Jughead finishes the train of thought for him.

“He threw a bottle at me.” He mutters, his face emotionless.

Confused, Archie thinks twice, then takes in Jughead’s appearance again. His heart falls to the floor at his feet as he pieces it together. He doesn’t want to, but he asks anyway.

“Did your Dad do this, Jughead?”

Jughead closes his eyes, dropping his head to his chest as if to give in to defeat.

“How long?” Fred asks appearing in the doorway, his face grim. “How long has this been going on?”

“First time… in a while.” He says in a low voice, his gaze stuck on the tile floor. “First time was a few years ago, I walked in on some fight him and Mom were having.”

“Why would he do this?” Archie questions. “Why would he hurt you?”

Jughead’s voice barely reached a whisper. “He knows, Arch… he knows about us.”

Archie sits back on his heels, exhaling heavily. He rubs a hand over the back of his neck, then nods at Jughead, unsure of what else to do.

When they started dating, they had agreed not to tell anyone, not even Betty or Veronica. The two boys hadn’t wanted anyone else snooping around in their business, in their _relationship_. They tried to be careful, going as far as driving half an hour out of town just to go on a movie date. Should they hang out around Riverdale, they wouldn’t sit directly next to each other, they _did not dare_ hold hands in public, it was too risky.

The way in which FP found out about them in the first place is beyond Jughead, but he doesn’t care about that right now. All he wants is to go to bed, to lie down with Archie and just forget that this whole night occurred. He had a nagging feeling that that wasn’t likely to happen, but one could still hope.

Archie looks towards his dad sheepishly. “Dad, uh… Jug and I um-.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Fred says, holding up a hand. “Not if the both of you aren’t ready, that conversation can wait for another day. Okay?”

Archie and Jughead nod. Jughead rises to his feet, hissing at the movement involuntarily.

Concerned, Archie rises with him then lifts his shirt. He’s met with a fresh bruise, a swarm of different growing shades of purple, prickled with bursts of red near the edges. The bruise wraps itself around Jughead’s ribcage, resembling the shape of a man’s boot. Archie touches the bruise lightly, feeling as though he may be sick to his stomach.

“You said that he threw a beer at you.”

“He did… _after_ he tried rearranging my ribcage.” The joke falls flat, doing nothing to lighten the mood.

Fred chimes in upon seeing the damage. “Jughead, I know you don’t want to hear this, but we gotta take you to the emergency room. Your ribs could be broken; you don’t have to tell them how it happened, but we need to get them looked at. Just to be safe.”

Jughead is ready to say no, despite not having the energy to fight with anyone else today. Then, Archie squeezes his hand lightly, and he finds himself agreeing. The three of them pile into Fred’s truck; in the back seat, Jughead doesn’t stop himself from laying his head on Archie’s shoulder.

Archie doesn’t let go of his hand once through the whole thing, not even when the nurse at the front desk gives them side eye. When one of the nurses performing the X-ray starts to ask how Jughead got the bruise, both of the Andrews men shake their heads at her, and she does not finish her sentence. Jughead sends a thousand silent “thank you’s” to each of them for saving him from the embarrassment. An hour later, they learn that Jughead’s ribs are not broken, but they’re going to be sore for a week or two.

In the truck again, Fred looks to the raven-haired boy using the rear-view mirror.

“You’re gonna stay with us tonight, alright, Jug?” He says.   

Jughead nods, not meeting his eye. When they get back to the house, he pulls Archie up the stairs, walking straight towards his bedroom. Gently, the pair lies down on Archie’s bed the same way that they do when they feel like cuddling; Archie is slightly propped up against the headboard while Jughead uses his chest as a pillow. Tonight, however, Jughead lies more on his stomach, trying to keep the pressure off of his ribs. 

Archie moves his fingers across the skin of Jughead’s neck, grazing the edge of his beanie periodically.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked quietly.

The hand that had been tracing a pattern over Archie’s heart stills for only a second.

“No.” Jughead replied simply.

“Okay… but you know that this isn’t your fault, right? You didn’t do anything wrong, Juggie, you have to know that.”

Jughead bites his lip, trying to keep it from trembling. Archie holds onto him a little tighter as he watches a tear run down the slope of his nose, feeling the boy begin to shake in his grip. He presses a kiss into his beanie covered head, doing what he can to make Jughead feel better after the mess of a day that he’s had.

Jughead falls asleep later, his face wet and his heart heavy. A part of him feels mortified, the not knowing what will happen next making him anxious every time he comes back to the thought. Another part of him feels relieved to be away from _that place_ , even if it’s only for tonight.

*

Jughead jerks awake in a panic, certain that he’s still being choked.

He’d dreamt that he’d been walking through the woods and slipped off a rocky edge. Jughead had struggled to hang on, trying to pull himself up and failing miserably. He’d looked up and found his father leaning over the edge, staring down at him. FP had reached out a hand as if to pull him up, but instead went for his neck, cutting off his son’s air supply.

 _“You. You did this to me.”_ He’d seethed.

Jughead woke up seconds before his father had let go, before he could fall to his death. He propels himself out of bed, moving blindly to get out of the room. His internal monologue sounds like his subconscious is trying to make itself known.

_Bad. Bad. Wrong. Bad. Get out. Get out. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong._

Jughead stumbles down the staircase, his adrenaline keeping him in motion. He struggles with the front door, can’t get his hands to curl and twist around the handle like they should. Somehow, with his own sheer force, the door opens and he shoots out like a light. He trips on the last porch step, his hands and knees scraping against the concrete walkway.

He can’t breathe, every time that he tries it catches it his throat, doesn’t quite break the surface. It’s dizzying, like a roller coaster ride that he can’t get off. Tears prick at his eyes as he gasps for air, shaking and wheezing uncontrollably. A warm hand settles between his shoulder blades, and he startles, rearing back. Another hand meets his chest and Jughead bats at it with weak hands. A gentle voice in his ear begins to pull him out of his reverie.

“Jughead, kiddo, listen to me. You’re okay, you’re not there. He can’t hurt you, okay? Not here. Just try and breathe, just let it out, Jug.”

It takes times, but Jughead eventually comes back to himself. Fred coaches Jughead through the rest of his panic attack, drawing a palm down Jughead’s spine with every shaky exhale. He goes boneless after a while, but allows Fred to pull him to his feet and help him back inside. They pass a guilt-stricken Archie in the foyer, and Jughead finds himself unable to meet his eye once again.

All three of them go into the kitchen where Fred had been making pancakes for breakfast, Archie and Jughead take their rightful seats at the counter.

Jughead feels a new kind of humiliated. Sure, he’s had panic attacks before, but never in front of someone else…not like _that_. He doesn’t have to look up to know that both of the Andrews men are looking at him, with pitiful glares nonetheless. His palms sting from where he’d scraped them on the ground, but he loosely links his fingers with Archie’s anyways, seeking out the comfort that comes with everything that Archie is.  

“Alright, so we have a couple of options,” Fred says, hands planted firmly on the countertop. “Jughead, you can call your mom and tell her about what happened, or we can all go down to the station and talk with Sheriff Keller. It’s up to you.”

_“Don’t come back here. If I find you here again, it’ll be the last thing that you do, I swear.”_

Jughead tightens his hand around Archie’s. “Can I just stay here for a while?”

Both of them nod at him. “Sure thing, Jug. Stay as long as you want, take all the time that you need.” 

Fred leaves after a minute, giving the boys some much needed privacy. Once he’s gone, Archie gets up, moving to hug Jughead around his shoulders, pressing his face into the side of his neck.

“I’m so sorry, Juggie.” Archie whispers.

“Please don’t apologize, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Yeah, well neither did you. You might not believe me right now, but it’s true.”

Jughead feels his heart skip a beat inside of his chest. He’s tried telling himself those words since he was fourteen, that his dad abusing him wasn’t his fault, but he could never convince himself enough to believe it. Now, hearing Archie, wonderful, loving, and _beautiful Archie_ say those words to him, Jughead feels himself trying to believe it. He entertains the thought for what it’s worth.

Jughead turns in his grip, hugging Archie around the waist, ignoring how it makes his ribs ache in protest. He breathes in the familiar scent that is Archie, Axe deodorant mixed with something sweet. It settles his nerves that have been on high alert for far too long. For the first time in years, Jughead finally feels at peace with the world.  

**Author's Note:**

> Requests like these give me FEELINGS, but they're so easy for me to write. Agh.
> 
> Thanks for reading! If you liked it you can leave a kudos or a comment, they give me the incentive to keep writing honestly. If you have a prompt for me, you can leave it here or at my riverdale blog via tumblr (thejugheadchronicles). Thanks again for reading my fic, have a great day!


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